Mobility matters: Women's livelihood strategies in Porto Novo, Benin

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This article is about the importance of women's mobility to determine their livelihood strategies especially when women are involved in trade and entrepreneurship activities in Porto Novo, Benin. The author argues that the importance of women's mobility and their livelihood strategies is settled by the intersection of ethnicity, class and work life-course and also by their different living socio-economic settings. The author conducted surveys and interviews with 535 women who applied different livelihood strategies. She used both open and close-ended questionnaires and snowball sampling. The author conducted 15 life and economic history interviews with the help of a local translator. From this research the author found that women selected their commercial activities based on the type of goods involved. This article includes feminist scholarship by examining the spacialities of social and economic processes. The article goes on to describe women's livelihood strategies in Porto Novo, including the importance of mobility, mobility constraints, opportunities and socio-economic context and mobility facilitators.